The Iberoamerican Summit opens this Friday in the Dominican Republic with an agenda focused on the economy, amid dark forecasts for a region that is seeking more financing and support to face a migratory and food crisis.
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With the confirmed presence of 14 of the 22 heads of state and government called to the meeting in Santo Domingo, which will close on Saturday with a joint declaration, timely solutions are expected to be reached.
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The first to arrive was the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. “It is an honor (…). It is the first official trip of a Portuguese president to the Dominican Republic,” he said in a brief statement at the Las Américas airport, after landing on Wednesday night and being received by the host foreign minister Roberto Alvarez.
The environment, trade and the digital divide will also be topics of the appointment, as well as the situation in Haiti, very sensitive for the Dominican Republic, its neighbor.
The meeting will be face-to-face again after the Andorra summit, in April 2021, which had mostly virtual attendance due to covid-19. And if then the focus was on vaccines and the fight against the virus, now it is the economic crisis that this generated, aggravated by the Russian invasion in the Ukraine.
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🇭🇳🤝🇩🇴 | President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro Sarmiento arrives in the Dominican Republic to participate in the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government. pic.twitter.com/UzlTAxDNnH
– Honduras Foreign Ministry (@CancilleriaHN) March 23, 2023
Foreign Minister Álvarez said that the declaration that the countries will sign “contains mainly works in relation to the inclusion of a digital charter, an environmental charter” and “a critical route for food security.”
The cost of a healthy diet in Latin America and the Caribbean is the highest in the world (USD 3.89 per person per day) and inaccessible to 22.5% of its population, according to the UN. Similarly, papers will be presented on “access to financing for middle-income countries” in light of “the interest rates that are strangling our countries,” added the chancellor. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) forecast a “difficult” 2023 on Sunday, with growth of just 1 percent for Latin America and the Caribbean, close to the estimate of 0.9 percent of the European Union for its territory.
Ecological transition, gender and digitization
These two days of meetings, in which the attendance of a thousand businessmen is expected, will revolve around the following axes: sustainability, social commitment and new financing models, economic prospects for Latin America, gender equality as a transforming engine; infrastructure, energy and ecological transition, connectivity and digital transformation, and tourism as the basis for recovery.
On Friday, before the closing of the XIV Business Meeting by Abinader and the King of Spain, Felipe VIthere will be a discussion with Heads of State and Government, to whom the conclusions of the forum and some recommendations for the
Ibero-American Summit on Friday and Saturday, under the motto “Together for a just and sustainable Ibero-America”.
‘Private dialogue’ of Petro and other presidents
He President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro; that of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and that of Cuba, Miguel Díaz Canel, They are among the confirmed heads of state along with Paraguayan Mario Abdo, Bolivian Luis Arce, Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso, Honduran Xiomara Castro and Costa Rican Rodrigo Cháves.
King Felipe VI and the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, also confirmed their attendance. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from Brazil, will be represented by his foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, while the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will send the undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Maximiliano Reyes.
Nor will Dina Boluarte, president of Peru, be investigated for the repression of protests after the dismissal of her predecessor, Pedro Castillo. Álvarez indicated that there will be space for “a private dialogue between all the leaders (…) without a pre-established agenda.”
Will Bukele, Maduro and Ortega be present?
in doubt is the attendance of the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, and the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, both criticized for their increasing authoritarianism and violations of human rights. And also that of the Venezuelan, Nicolás Maduro, the center of a heated debate in Andorra, where many leaders did not recognize him due to his controversial re-election in 2018.
That changed with the return of the left to several of the countries that were betting on his fall, beginning with Iván Duque in Colombia, succeeded by Petro, who restored relations with Venezuela. Something similar happened in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Honduras.
The summit “is another opportunity for Venezuela to normalize its position on the international stage (…), be one more in the concert of nations and leave behind the legitimacy crisis that has plagued its foreign policy,” said the Venezuelan expert on international relations Iván Rojas.
Migration and Haiti, two issues of concern
Immigration will be the hottest topic at the summit, in a region with strong flows of migrants for years.
Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, Central Americans and Mexicans seek to escape poverty and the lack of opportunities in their countries.
“The case of Haiti will probably enter the final declaration, but that remains to be seen,” said Rubén Silié, the Dominican vice minister of Multilateral Foreign Policy. “We cannot impose the agenda.” Since he came to power in 2020, the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, has toughened his immigration policies against Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and controlled by gangs.
The Dominican president ordered the construction of a wall on stretches of the 380 km border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic and last year deported more than 170,000 Haitians, which has earned him criticism from the international community.
STEPHANY ECHAVARRÍA
INTERNATIONAL EDITOR
TIME
On Twitter: @stephechavarria
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